Another top Bloomberg aide joins his new firm

After a long, grueling and occasionally controversial stint as a top aide in the Bloomberg administration, Linda Gibbs was looking forward to taking off for six months or a year before returning to the field of social services. But Michael Bloomberg apparently made her an offer she couldn't refuse.

Ms. Gibbs, who was commissioner of the Department of Homeless Services and then, for eight years, deputy mayor for health and human services, has joined the former mayor's new, pro bono consultancy, Bloomberg Associates, which has been a popular landing spot for many of her one-time City Hall colleagues.

A spokesperson for the firm confirmed the hiring but declined to provide details of the role Ms. Gibbs will have at the firm, which will provide free services to select cities around the world on initiatives that reflect Mr. Bloomberg's philosophies. If her job is similar to the one she held in the administration, Ms. Gibbs will lead the firm's efforts to combat poverty and improve the delivery of services to needy and at-risk constituencies. She was not available for an interview.

In November, a month before Mr. Bloomberg's 12-year run as mayor ended, Ms. Gibbs told the New York Nonprofit Press, "I'm going to stay involved in this work. This is my passion. There will be plenty of opportunities after I wake up from my nap to get back engaged, be helpful and be part of the future." She had planned to do a yoga retreat with her husband, lobbyist Thomas McMahon, and to take additional months to decompress.

Instead, Ms. Gibbs has quickly found herself at the consultancy alongside former Bloomberg officials Janette Sadik-Khan, who was the three-term mayor's transportation commissioner; Amanda Burden, his planning czar; George Fertitta, his tourism chief; Kate Levin, his cultural affairs commissioner; and Katherine Oliver, his media and entertainment commissioner.

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Linda Gibbs, the deputy mayor for health and hums services for former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, has joined his new pro bono consultancy, Bloomberg Associates.

The New York Times has described Mr. Bloomberg's new venture as "an urban SWAT team, deployed at the invitation of local governments to solve knotty, long-term challenges, like turning a blighted waterfront into a gleaming public space, or building subway-friendly residential neighborhoods." It operates out of a large townhouse around the corner from the billionaire mayor's Upper East Side home, where it will work closely with Mr. Bloomberg's foundation, which itself employs many who served in his administration.

Ms. Gibbs as deputy mayor tried to better integrate services provided by agencies that had long operated as if in silos, and she implemented some changes that irked nonprofit organizations, including those serving seniors and particularly some advocates for the homeless. The mayor took office in 2002 pledging to substantially reduce the number of homeless people in the city, but instead it surged to record highs while declining nationwide. Critics took issue with the administration's decision to stop giving priority for public housing to families in the shelter system; the mayor believed it was inducing them to enter shelters. Ms. Gibbs portrayed the situation as a Catch-22, but advocates viewed her and the mayor as stubborn for not trying it their way.

In the final month of their tenure, the mayor and Ms. Gibbs were rocked by a five-part, 28,000-word The New York Times series about a homeless family of 10 living in a single room for three years in a dangerous and filthy shelter in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Even though the series laid most of the blame for the children's sorry state on their parents, much of the public's and media's attention focused on the failings of the administration, which complained that it was not given a chance to defend itself in the series. Ultimately, the family was moved to a subsidized apartment in Harlem and improvements were made to the shelter that they left, but the series undercut the mayor's argument that the population of city homeless shelters exploded because he made the facilities more comfortable than they used to be.

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